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Eritreans in Minnesota weigh a dream gone mad
The following headline popped up last week in my email alerts set for Eritrea, a tiny nation bordering the Red Sea in the Horn of Africa: “Eritrea Shuts Christian Students into Shipping Containers.”
Shipping containers? What on earth is happening in Eritrea?
I know Eritrea is small, but Georgia is small, too. In such small places we often glimpse our fates and futures.
And stuffing human beings into bare shipping containers, isn’t that something only a crazed and perverted monster would do?
The fiercely proud, patient, hospitable people of Eritrea wouldn’t possibly condone this.
Who or what then is their monster?
Religious Persecution
My summer project has been to learn all that I can about the Horn of Africa – sometimes called the “third front” in the War on Terror our country is waging — by meeting with refugees from the region who live in Minnesota.
About 50,000 immigrants from the Horn of Africa live in Minnesota, most of them refugees from civil wars, famine, and political and religious persecution in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea.
Not every alarmist headline checks out, of course. But where there’s smoke there’s often fire, so I did some digging on Eritrea’s cargo container prisons.
I discovered what many Minnesota’s Eritreans have known for years: the Eritrean government is filling up its prisons with dissidents, journalists and practitioners of outlawed religions so fast it’s grabbing rusty old cargo containers from their Red Sea ports to handle the overflow.
No Fantasy
They put the containers, which have no plumbing or toilets, in the desert.
Why hasn’t this news gotten around more, not just in Minnesota but worldwide? And within what larger picture of Eritrea do these shipping containers fit?
The Eritrean community in the Twin Cities hosted a talk recently on the current human rights situation in their country, at the First Cup Café in south Minneapolis, an African diaspora hub. I stopped by to listen.
The speaker, Seyoum Tesfaye, an Eritrean American political writer and blogger, said that Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afwerki, has in recent years carried out a firm policy of jailing, torturing and often killing anyone who even mildly disagrees with his statements and policies.
“Pretending this is not happening is a fantasy,” Tesfaye told the group of about 20 Eritrean immigrants living Minnesota. “People are being picked up at the airport and disappearing. The organic cause of the Eritrean crisis is the present one-party dictatorship. Our puny tyrant is doing it.”
Sky-High Hopes
Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the deterioration of human rights in Eritrea in recent years, corroborating every claim of Tesfaye’s and more.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Eritrea’s press dead last in this year’s world press freedoms index, even below the North Korea press. Even reporters at Eritrea’s state-run TV station have been arrested and jailed.
Mass conscription of young people for military service, and using forced labor to build infrastructure projects, are also widely documented.
But even now many Eritreans are still in denial, Tesfaye said. That’s thanks to the sky-high hopes that followed Eritrea’s seemingly miraculous secession from Ethiopia following a 30-year struggle in 1991.
Isaias Afwerki, president of Eritrea
Isaias Afwerki was one of the dashing, brilliant and courageous revolutionaries who led the country to that victory. When he became president, hopes ran high that finally a leader had arrived who would stand up to outside aggression and fashion a genuine, thriving Eritrean state.
Electrification Projects
Even through several disastrous stumbles, such as the calamitous 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia that claimed 75,000 lives, Eritreans mostly held their faith that Afwerki would pull the country through to better days.
Today, keeping such faith in Afwerki is a fool’s dream, Tesfaye says.
“Somewhere along the line we made a big mistake,” Tesfaye added. “We considered ourselves so special, so different. Instead of putting our faith in the rule of law, we put it in a man, who is weak and flawed like the rest of us.”
At these words, one aggrieved young Eritrean-American in the audience practically jumped out of his seat in protest.
“You are manufacturing facts as you go along!” the young man bellowed. “The fact is that there has been a lot of progress under the government. They have built 500 hospitals, put in paved roads, reduced malaria deaths by 40 percent, and built small dams and electrification projects in rural areas!”
Warning Signals“Mussolini built roads too,” Tesfaye coolly replied. “Did that make him a great leader? Yes, there are new schools, but who is attending them? There are 197,000 Eritrean refugees in Sudan and who is responsible for that?”
Several older Eritrean men in the audience, showing the young man respect but trying to head off an escalation, nervously patted the air to calm things down.
After the meeting, I chatted with several Eritrean Minnesotans but none wanted to give me their names, saying they feared for the safety of relatives who still live in Eritrea if their names appeared in print.
The world’s smallest places often clearly exhibit the symptoms of global dysfunction, offering warning signals of a potentially spreading cancer.
The grip of fear that reaches all the way to Minnesota – all the way from those shipping containers — seems like a powerful warning signal to me.
Douglas McGill has reported for the New York Times and Bloomberg News—and now the Daily Planet.
To contact Doug McGill: doug@mcgillreport.org.
And visit The McGill Report
Comments
Douglas you should know better then this.
Douglas slow down big guy, you can’t belive everything anyone tells you, if you consider your self a report. well then you can dig deeper and find out this are just made up stories, Shipping containers in eritrea are used for many thing… mobile offices, schools, even to store things in them. as you know Eritrea is poor country per capital GDP of $250… it’s does not have the money to build a multi million dollar prison.
Re: Eritreans in Minnesota weigh a dream gone mad
Mr. Douglas McGill,
Thank you for paying attention to Eritrea.You sampled a gathering of some “20 or so Eritreans” and called it an experiment. I’d give you an “E” for Effort.
The problem is hundreds of thounsands of Eritreans visit their country every year to leard first hand about their country’s situation. And the same number if not more hold huge festivals, seminars and sports activities not in “Cafes” but in Stadiums and Arena’s to discuss about their country’s situation. Their love for Eritrea (and their numbers) continues to grow, a clear sign of their satisfaction of improving standard of living of their common folks back home.
So if you want to learn about Eritrea, visit Eritrea and and the major Diapora events see for yourself. Then you’ll understand the on how to separate a HOAX from the FACT.
-FAH
Thank you for speaking on behalf of Eritreans
Dear Mr. Douglas,
Thank you for speaking on behalf of Eritreans, like my self who are not able to speak for themselves.
It is unfortunate but what you heard in the meeting and what you reported is all true.
Please see below an article of a testimony given by an Eritrean in the UN with regards to human rights issue in Eritrea.
http://www.america.gov/st/hr-english/2008/July/20080730110638ajesrom0.64...
A lot of Eritreans are in denial but the fact is, many young Eritrean are running the country in the thousands to neighbouring countries.
For example there are close to 18,000 refugees in Ethiopia. A Canadian journalist from CBC went to the area and did a documentary about it.
You may be able to get a copy and learn more about the documentary he made, that will give you better understanding in what is happening inside the country.
Thank you for speaking.
Abreham
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200711/20071109.html
Shimelba Documentary
Every refugee camp in the world has its own particular dynamic: a set of circumstances that make it different from the rest.
But there’s a camp called Shimelba in northern Ethiopia that is truly unique. Shimelba is right near the border with Eritrea, and that puts it in the middle of what has been a war zone. And as tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea rise — again — the fear is that Shimelba could once more end up on the firing line.
The CBC’s Stephen Puddicombe has just come back from a trip to Ethiopia and to Shimelba, and we spoke to him from London, England.
First you weak attempt to
First you weak attempt to separate Eritrean people and Eritrean land is dubious because for a nation to be recognized its boundaries must clear YES or NO ??? That means badame must be returned to eritrea YES or NO. Dont forget eritrea is respecting international law YES or NO ?
But Agames are da one who are satan and do satans work they accepted satan as their leader and work for him attacking Eritrea Somalia and they dont even care about the famine in oromos and Ogadenes land. fact sir not more or less then fact 6 millions ( i will pray for them every day with the power of Jesus everything will be possible)
19,000 eritrean soldiers paid the maximum price to maintain the eritrean nation like i said before there is no point fighting for 30 years then giving up the land to Ethiopia never never. If eritrea suffers now then thats tough because eritrea is not only for people who are alive now eritrea is for the eritrean people who aren’t alive yet.
and dear Douglas McGill, you need to seperate the different between Agames and Eritreane haaha
God bless
The other side of the story.
Oh Doug, come on, you can not be taken for a ride by buffoons like Tesfaye, who has his own agenda and tries anything to vilify the current gov.
When it comes to the so called “Christian Persecution” news that is flooding the internet, it is heavily organized and being pushed/distributed by hard line evangelists that believe in the doctrine of their hard line pastors like John Hagee that condemns other religions be it Catholics or Muslims . They try anything to convert people of other religions (even Christians of other denominations) specially in Africa, where they send thousands of their youth, fresh from Evangelist colleges with money incentives. This backfires from time to time either by the people/ governments resisting, that brings us to the media vilification. Here are two examples
Hagee preaching
Consequences of conversion
When it comes to Eritrea, what people don’t know is Christianity arrived there, in the 4th century and Muslims came much later, but the society is divided half and half and living reasonably in harmony for centuries.
When it comes to Christianity the majority are Orthodox Christians, the rest are Catholics, Lutheran 7th day Adventists, Evangelists, very few Jehovah witnesses and other denominations.
After independence in the early 90’s, every man and his dog were coming to Eritrea to push their religion by any means, in a newly opened country. The government was quick in discouraging fundamentalist religions (be it Christians or muslims) from converting people. To control this all non native religions were asked to register , which the Evangelists refused and this brings us to the love and hate relationship. So I will ask you, when all sort of Christians worship freely including the Lutheran which is not far off from Evangelists, and Evangelists refused to follow the directives of the government that is having a hard time to balance the tight rope, allowing bigots like Hagee to preach hate to half of their population, is that Christian Persecution ?
When it comes to locking up people in containers, I am not going to say it does not happen, but people tend to forget Eritrea had been under colonialist till the second world war and a play ground for east/west during cold war until independence in 1993. The country is coming out from a war devastated infrastructure, and the culprits in the east/west do not want to pay compensation or help in any way. The hard reality is, prisons take a lesser priority than hospitals or watering holes. Are we advocating prisons should take priority before other infrastructure or are we advocating not to lock up people when they break the law or refuse to do their duty ?
I would ask you Doug, why is it the very people(mainly westerns) that admonish Africans about democracy, rule of law, governance etc are the first ones to break all rules when it suits them.
When it comes to Eritrea, it is trying self sufficiency, yet rather than helping it, the west is doing everything in its power to make it fail. This includes the west breaking international rule of law when it comes to the already finalized Ethio Eritrean border issue, that is sapping a much needed resource that could have gone to development.
When it comes to Ethiopia, it is breaking every type of international and UN laws not to mention stolen elections, invading neighbouring countries, massacres, rapes etc yet the the west is funding it to the tune of at least $2 billion/yr not to mention arming it to the teeth. Don’t take my word for it, read the recent report from Human rights watch that implicates mainly western countries US, UK, EU, Canada.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/12/ethiop19029.htm
I will leave you with a very good comment I saw in the Reuters Africa blog to give you some idea of what is going on in the horn of Africa.
Source of comment
http://tinyurl.com/55o3or
Read comment below
=============================================
Well this is an example of what happens to a country, when the west harks about democracy and rule of law then goes back to undermine and manipulate the issue.
With out going back far, if we look at the border issue between Ethiopia and Eritrea, rule of law should have prevailed, but American Strategical interest superseded any international law and UN shamelessly has been manipulated to fit its own criteria. The Eritreans are simply saying do not move the goal post.
Here is the US trying to manipulate the already completed UN border decision that is final and binding.
http://www.slate.com/id/2178793/
Here is also another manufactured crisis between Djibouti and Eritrea that no one including Reuters seems to have picked.
“A military source said French forces based in Djibouti had carried out a reconnaissance on Thursday at the government’s request but had not been able to confirm an incursion.”
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=753588
Here is another example of Bush Admin. warped reasoning of arming Ethiopia with tax payers money by letting it purchase massive amount of armaments from North Korea, breaking all rules and breaking UN sanctions. The UN seems to be happy about keeping quite while whining and trying to block Zimbabwes’ armed shipment from China that is not breaking any UN rules.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/08/news/arms.php
Here is Assistant secretary of state Jendayi Frazer being caught lying about US’s planning and invasion of Somalia with Ethiopia six months ahead of the event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJka6q16Os
Here is the same woman, denying the horrible atrocities committed by the Ethiopians, giving them cover, while being accused by Red cross, Amnesty etc.
http://tinyurl.com/ysmvtc
http://tinyurl.com/5aljl4
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWSuNtg8sIGBjTzDalP38Fz1wFBg
And here is the reason why somalia is in chaos
According to BBC, ICU came out of necessity
http://tinyurl.com/4ddmmu
Until CIA started paying the very people that were involved in black hawk dawn hundreds of thousands until it backfired big time
NY times article below
http://tinyurl.com/3u964k
So you understand where he is coming from, He is trying to protect the interests of Eritrea, as he can see International rule of law does not mean any thing at all but is a smoke screen of what the west and specially the three members of the Security council want.
As history tells us, they have not been kind to the Eritrean people and they have no plans to start now.
As much as people try to pile accusations on him, I think they should try to do the right thing first and accuse him later.
As has been seen, the border issue has huge implication on the whole of the horn of Africa. If that is not fixed, as the saying goes ” For the want of nail….. “ – Posted by Dan
Get Real People
Great Article.
Wow. Unbelievably uninformed comments. Afwerki is the best president? Really??
Eritrea is not free and the standard of living is not improving, it is getting worse. Beggars are everywhere when previously they had been non-existent. To those suggesting that the writer doesn’t understand and needs to go to Eritrea and see for himself – I’ve been to Eritrea. My wife has family member’s living in Eritrea. You can’t even have an informal bible study in your home without being in danger of being arrested. As an American, I had to get special permission to go ANYWHERE in the country. When I was there, my brother-in-laws who are British citizens – also visiting Eritrea – were stopped in traffic and told that they needed to get in a truck to become a part of the Army. If they did not happen to be carrying their British passports on them, they would have been taken ON THE SPOT and who knows how long it would have taken for them to get out. If the only reason for not allowing religious freedom is that SOME religions don’t believe in military service, why outlaw ALL religions (except for the state approved Greek Orthodox, Catholic, & Muslim)??
It is just really sad and my heart goes out to all of the Eritrean people many of whom appreciate articles like this one that help get the true story out – not like some of the above comments made by Afwerki’s cadre.
ABUSE CHILD SYNDROME!
RECENTLY I MEET SOME ERITREAN LADIES THAT ARE SETTLED HERE IN CANADA FROM A REFUGEE COMP IN LIBYA .THE COMP LIFE IS VERY HARD ONE, EVEN WORST THAN THE ONE IN WEA MILITARY PRISON COMP BUT I DO NOT BLAME THEM MORE THAN SO CALLED GOVERNMENT OF ERITREA ! GOING BACK TO THE STORY , THERE WHERE SOME ETHIOPIAN AT THAT PARTICULAR COMP AND THEY COULD NOT BEAR THE HEAT AND THE HARDSHIP AND THEY DECIDED TO GO BACK TO THEIR COUNTRY KNOW THE THEIR GOVERNMENT WILL NOT ARREST THEM UP ARRIVAL , BUT 99.9% OF THE ERITREAN`S REFUSED TO GO BACK TO THEIR COUNTRY ,EVEN WHEN THE ERITREA EMBASSY IN LIBYA ASSURE THEM THAT NOTHING GOING TO HAPPEN TO THEM WHEN THEY GO BACK HOME. THEY KNOW THAT ERITREAN GOVERNMENT IS UN TRUST WORTHY ,EVEN THOSE WHO SETTLED HERE IN THE WEST ARE FULL OF FEAR THAT SOME OF THEM CHOSE TO JION THE ABUSERS OF THEIR HUMAN RIGHT .
THIS SOUND TO ME ABUSE CHILD SYNDROME!
Dear Sir, They thought
Dear Sir,
They thought they were special. Look what has that gotten them.
It is a fake “independence”. Independence from what/whom. They used to own Ethiopia.
Their man in Ethiopia, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi signed the papers for this fake indpendence. By and large, we thank him for it, except that he sold a good chunk of land what is rightfully Ethiopian.
I doubt that they will be let back in now. At lease we hope so.
It is a blessing that they are on their own.
We all wish that all their agents in Ethiopia join them in their fledging “democracy”.
Even though, they have been like a cancer to us, we still love them, as we love all humanity.
God Bless,
Ethiopian American
why denying facts and evidences?
thanks very much for your interest of eritrea. what you heard about is not fabricated it is all right. there is no democracy, no elections,no freedom of thinking , speaking, and writting facing torture and persecution who speaks about the government in a constructive manner. it is true people are only escaping from their own country for the main reason that there is no government but one minded head mafia with servants with only aim to gain fresh cash from any form of controversial politics and from different sectors, they dont give a shit of the people and eritrea is seen as huge pub where you can control everything and gain everything from it . about ethiopia eritrea war there is much to say, but many eritreans forget that the first to break international laws by invading a sovereign territory was eritrea, therefore there is the law of relativity once ethiopia had the upper hand in the war. MOST ERITREANS FOR FEAR, FOR IGNORANCE,NOT LIVING IN ERITREA, DENY FACTS AND EVIDENCES. THE COUNTRY IS A BIG PRISON. NOTHING HAS IMPROVED! IT IS ALL ILLUSION! I COULD LIST SO MANY EVENTS AND FACTS DURING MY STAY IN ERITREA FOR SEVEN YEARS, BUT I LEAVE YOU ON YOUR RESEARCH WHICH IS ON RIGHT TRACK AND YOU WILL DISCOVER MORE , PLEASE EXPOSE THEM, THIS WILL HELP TO BE CONSTRUCTIVE AND HELPFUL FOR THE PEOPLE LIVING IN TERROR IN ERITREA. DONT HESITATE TO CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE Q.
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